On the Greenheart Games blog, developer Patrick Klug details how he intentionally seeded a "pirated" version of Game Dev Tycoon at the very moment that the title went up on the developer's store yesterday. This illicit version plays exactly like the official paid version for the first few hours, letting players control a miniature game development studio trying to release successful titles in a simulated marketplace.

After a while, though, those playing the pirated version will be confronted with a message that, as Klug puts it, takes "the unique opportunity of holding a mirror in front of them and showing them what piracy can do to game developers."

Boss, it seems that while many players play our new game, they steal it by downloading a cracked version rather than buying it legally. If players don’t buy the games they like, we will sooner or later go bankrupt.

That's right: players in the pirated version will inevitably find themselves failing thanks to piracy. Interestingly, this tweak arguably makes the illegal version of Game Dev Tycoon a little more true-to-life than the version that players can actually buy (though in a way that's decidedly not very fun for the player).

Most pirates, on seeing the above message, might take it as a good opportunity to take a good, hard look at themselves and examine the effects their own actions are having on the developers. Some players, though, apparently missed the irony and instead took to message boards to complain about the effect piracy was having on their in-game studio... in a game they themselves pirated.

"Why are there so many people that pirate? It ruins me! ... Not fair" wrote one user while busy being "not fair" to the developers of Game Dev Tycoon. "I can't make any profit... I mean can I research a DRM or something" wrote another user, who would likely have been incensed if Greenheart Games had put DRM on the game he was playing.

While it's easy to laugh at the lack of self-awareness on display, the actual usage statistics for Game Dev Tycoon probably don't seem that funny to Greenheart Games. After a single day on the market, the developer found that the 214 users that bought the game for $7.99 (or 6.49EUR) were dwarfed by at least 3,100 pirates. That's more than 93 percent of players who didn't pay a cent. This might sound high, but it's in line with what otherPC game developershave seen for their titles. Even pay-what-you-want bundles that offer their games for as little as a penny can run into serious problems with pirates.

We can argue all day about just how many of those pirates would have actually plunked down the money for Game Dev Tycoon if piracy wasn't an option, but we can only imagine that it would be more than zero. In any case, hopefully a few of those thousands of pirates will at least come across a bit of additional empathy for the hard-working, piracy-plagued game developers after their experience with the "cracked" version of Game Dev Tycoon.

Actually the funniest antipiracy is still Starflight, where if you failed the codewheel check twice, you would get 'pulled over' by the Interstel Police Patrol ships for violation of the Copyright Act - in the 30th Century evidently a capital crime - <G>.

Jonnan

117 posts | registered Nov 12, 2010

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

On the Greenheart Games blog, developer Patrick Klug details how he intentionally seeded a "pirated" version of Game Dev Tycoon at the very moment that the title went up on the developer's store yesterday. This illicit version plays exactly like the official paid version for the first few hours, letting players control a miniature game development studio trying to release successful titles in a simulated marketplace.

<snark>So, in this game, can another game company copy your game idea?</snark> (edit: wow, in the time it took me to type that, beaten to the punch twice!)

Anyway, I wish this feature had been a bit more up front about why it was happening. As it is, a lot of these people will probably just give bad reviews to the game, completely unaware of what was actually going on. TBH this is a pretty cool way to spread a "demo" version.

I'm having a hard time not writing some kind of snide comment along the lines of 'who cares, it's yet just another lame sim game'.

But I will go with: Hey at least now they got some free advertising from Ars. Which makes me wonder if that wasn't the original intention of the "pirate" version of the game. Viral marketing. oooOOOooo.

On the Greenheart Games blog, developer Patrick Klug details how he intentionally seeded a "pirated" version of Game Dev Tycoon at the very moment that the title went up on the developer's store yesterday. This illicit version plays exactly like the official paid version for the first few hours, letting players control a miniature game development studio trying to release successful titles in a simulated marketplace.

If he made it available online, it's not really piracy, is it?

Availability of file != granting of software license

Since there's no DRM there's no need for the game to be "cracked" so anyone who has a working copy can share it; but you're not legally using it until you buy the license.

This actually turned out to be good advertising for them since everyone who isn't the oblivious kids who pirated it then complained thinks this is pretty clever

Things he does have control over: The appeal of his game to customers.

Even if this is totally unfair and whatever, there is more he could have done to make the game appealing at that price point. Indie devs looking to earn a living making games should make what's going to sell, not what they want to make and then complain that it doesn't.

I've been working on a title on my free time... and stories like this scare the crap out of me. For as many successful indie titles there are out there, there's tons of 90+% piracy rate ones that only sell a few...

I'm generally against DRM, I realize it tends to hurt more than not, and I also realize its almost always crackable within a day of coming out....

If you offer an online service, its a bit easier to handle, illegal accounts you can block/try to prevent from being made or logging in... but if you want to offer a single player experience... what can you offer or do to protect yourself in any way against this?

Yawn. That comment and the accompanying statistics are highly misleading. There are suites of tools that automatically download 0-day releases for a large number of people. This means that on day 1 a huge influx of people will have pirated copies of the game compared to legal purchases on most titles. This is true for movies and music as well.

95% pirated after day 1? I don't doubt it. 95% pirated after 2 months? 3 months? When the 0-day scripts are no longer in effect? I doubt that very seriously.

It does look a lot like Game Dev Story, but then lots of games are similar, so unless they're ripping off the artwork or code, it's just another game in a genre. I'd have to see more about how it works to decide if it's a clone or not.

The attack on piracy is pretty much spot-on. A lot of pirates claim they want to try the game. Well, now they did and look! It's quite realistic.

People who just want something for nothing get a taste of how that feels, although without the added sting of their mortgage being on the line.

All in all, a good response. Sadly, that will probably be hacked out by someone with no ethics and no sense of humour.

The idea that piracy kills sales is a fallacy. It's probably true to some degree that piracy affects sales of giant blockbuster content, but for anything smaller, it's just going to end up being free advertising. Obscurity is the enemy, not pirates.

Yawn. That comment and the accompanying statistics are highly misleading. There are suites of tools that automatically download 0-day releases for a large number of people. This means that on day 1 a huge influx of people will have pirated copies of the game compared to legal purchases on most titles. This is true for movies and music as well.

95% pirated after day 1? I don't doubt it. 95% pirated after 2 months? 3 months? When the 0-day scripts are no longer in effect? I doubt that very seriously.

Wow. People have tools that automatically download the newest pirated material for them as soon as it becomes available? Not only are they unwilling to pay for stuff, they don't want to wait for it either, much less do any kind or work to find it themselves?

Wait let me get this straight....someone took the time to pirate this game???

While I get that pirating can hurt game companies, I wonder what the real world numbers would differ if no one pirated a game...in other words, how many of these pirates would have purchased the game if no free copy was available?

I have a feeling that on games like this, the percentage of people who download it and would actually pay for it is very low, so its probably not hurting the company monetarily as much as they think.

My comment is quickly being down-voted, but I would like to point out that release of something on file sharing systems does not make it illigitiment. Many wide-spread update distributions are done with P2P. Some examples are MMORPGs like LOTRO and WOW. If an author intentionally releases his software on P2P, and even gets his friends to help, and DOCUMENTS it, then it is not "piracy" even in the bastardized version of the word.

It does look a lot like Game Dev Story, but then lots of games are similar, so unless they're ripping off the artwork or code, it's just another game in a genre. I'd have to see more about how it works to decide if it's a clone or not.

The attack on piracy is pretty much spot-on. A lot of pirates claim they want to try the game. Well, now they did and look! It's quite realistic.

People who just want something for nothing get a taste of how that feels, although without the added sting of their mortgage being on the line.

All in all, a good response. Sadly, that will probably be hacked out by someone with no ethics and no sense of humour.

That may be, but as the numbers they posted were based on analytic data sent back by the game itself when run, the number is INDEED ACCURATE, as much as many gamers seem to want to decry it. So if what you say is true, the actual piracy number is EVEN HIGHER, since those were day one plays only.

What's been incredibly disturbing is the amount of comments I see on this story everywhere trying to self justify piracy and demonizing the developers for even DARING to teach gamers a karmic lesson that they've been trying to hide from. At the end of the day, theft is theft, no matter how many pirates try to weasel around it.

Come on now, nobody here said that. It's just disingenuous for them to get all riled up about piracy when their entire game seems to be based on copying from others in the first place.

The clear implication is that he isn't sympathetic to piracy concerns because the game is a "knock off." If there's another way to read that post, I'd love to hear it

It's a huge stretch to say that just because you're not sympathetic to something you are claiming it's OK, which is exactly what you are continuing to claim. I don't support the death penalty, that doesn't mean I'd be particularly sympathetic if the Boston marathon bomber was sentenced to a lethal injection.

My comment is quickly being down-voted, but I would like to point out that release of something on file sharing systems does not make it illigitiment. Many wide-spread update distributions are done with P2P. Some examples are MMORPGs like LOTRO and WOW. If an author intentionally releases his software on P2P, and even gets his friends to help, and DOCUMENTS it, then it is not "piracy" even in the bastardized version of the word.

Considering that they released it with the title "CRACKED" and every other pirated moniker they could think of, arguing that it shouldn't be piracy is about as likely to get you off the hook as those car thieves who claim that the cops having "bait cars" is entrapment.

What's been incredibly disturbing is the amount of comments I see on this story everywhere trying to self justify piracy and demonizing the developers for even DARING to teach gamers a karmic lesson that they've been trying to hide from. At the end of the day, theft is theft, no matter how many pirates try to weasel around it.

Piracy is being ingrained into being socially acceptable behavior, and as I've repeatedly pointed out this mindset will bleed into other aspects of society. We may yet long for the day when all it was was piracy.

Come on now, nobody here said that. It's just disingenuous for them to get all riled up about piracy when their entire game seems to be based on copying from others in the first place.

The clear implication is that he isn't sympathetic to piracy concerns because the game is a "knock off." If there's another way to read that post, I'd love to hear it

It's a huge stretch to say that just because you're not sympathetic to something you are claiming it's OK, which is exactly what you are continuing to claim. I don't support the death penalty, that doesn't mean I'd be particularly sympathetic if the Boston marathon bomber was sentenced to a lethal injection.

I will edit my original statement:

Just because a game isn't 100% original, you're not sympathetic to people stealing from him?

My comment is quickly being down-voted, but I would like to point out that release of something on file sharing systems does not make it illigitiment. Many wide-spread update distributions are done with P2P. Some examples are MMORPGs like LOTRO and WOW. If an author intentionally releases his software on P2P, and even gets his friends to help, and DOCUMENTS it, then it is not "piracy" even in the bastardized version of the word.

Considering that they released it with the title "CRACKED" and every other pirated moniker they could think of, arguing that it shouldn't be piracy is about as likely to get you off the hook as those car thieves who claim that the cops having "bait cars" is entrapment.

They admitted that they released it for free, on purpose. How can you get confused about that concept? It would be more like telling someone that downloading a picture of marijuana is illegal. It isn't.

My comment is quickly being down-voted, but I would like to point out that release of something on file sharing systems does not make it illigitiment. Many wide-spread update distributions are done with P2P. Some examples are MMORPGs like LOTRO and WOW. If an author intentionally releases his software on P2P, and even gets his friends to help, and DOCUMENTS it, then it is not "piracy" even in the bastardized version of the word.

Considering that they released it with the title "CRACKED" and every other pirated moniker they could think of, arguing that it shouldn't be piracy is about as likely to get you off the hook as those car thieves who claim that the cops having "bait cars" is entrapment.

They admitted that they released it for free, on purpose. How can you get confused about that concept? It would be more like telling someone that downloading a picture of marijuana is illegal. It isn't.

Think. Then post. Not doing that puts you at risk.

They released a modified version that would catch pirates in the act, mimicking a pirate release, out onto a single torrent site to see if they could catch pirates, much like cops will place nice cars in high theft areas outfitted with cameras and remote locks and kill switches. The pirates downloaded the fake release, and got caught, much like a car thief does with the bait cars cops use.

And you're arguing that it shouldn't be considered wrong because the option of theft was there? Good logic there. Arguments like that make me fear for this planet.

They admitted that they released it for free, on purpose. How can you get confused about that concept? It would be more like telling someone that downloading a picture of marijuana is illegal. It isn't.

Yep -- it's the same way that if you try to buy drugs from an undercover officer, it's not actually a crime because it is the police making the drugs available, and not a real drug dealer.